The twentieth century, while introducing the scene of events that changed the course of humanity, was graced by a beneficial action through a perhaps little-known figure: Blessed Columba Marmion, whose memory the Church celebrates on 30 January.
Newsroom (31/01/2024 21:35, Gaudium Press) He was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 1 April 1858, into a family with a solid Catholic background. Being of frail complexion, his parents, William Marmion and Herminie Cordier, hastened to bring him to the baptismal font and gave him the name Joseph.
A child of privileged intelligence and temperamental balance, he appeared to show a priestly vocation in every respect. Observing these signs, his parents made a singular decision: to dress him in black, anticipating the ecclesiastical habit he would one day wear. They explained to him that they were doing this because he was going to be a priest.
But the boy didn’t seem to care much about that. He was more interested in climbing trees and catching butterflies. Though while his little brothers wore cheerful and colourful outfits, according to Irish taste, Joseph was distinguished by his dark clothes, which he would one day exchange for a cassock.
Priest at 23 years of age
Of the six children in that Christian home, four were blessed with a religious vocation. Three of Joseph’s sisters followed the consecrated life and he himself, after successfully completing his first studies, entered the diocesan seminary in Dublin.
Marmion began a luminous career, characterised from the outset by a theological eagerness and ardent piety.
His success in his studies led his superiors to place their best hopes in him. They sent him to Rome, where he studied at the Pontifical Irish College and then at Propaganda Fide. In the latter, the teachings of the Angelic Doctor decisively benefited his spiritual life, as he learnt from him never to dissociate doctrinal knowledge from a life of holiness.
This progress led him to take rapid steps towards ordination. On 16 April 1881 he received the diaconate, and on 16 June of the same year he was ordained a priest in the Roman church of Santa Agata dei Gothi. He was 23 years old at the time.
At the request of his bishop, he soon returned to Ireland with a thousand healthy intentions in his soul, a few unknowns and an old dream: to be a missionary in Australia.
His soul remained unsatisfied.
Back home, Fr. Marmion was appointed parish priest in the village of Dundrum, an office to which he gave himself body and soul. This was for a short time, however, and after a year he was called by the Bishop of Dublin to teach at the major seminary in Clonliffe.
In those early days of priesthood, however, his soul remained unsatisfied. He felt like a stump in his spiritual journey.
He felt he needed a teacher to guide him to the heavenly homeland. A question was on his mind: was he not called to religious life, instead of joining the secular clergy?
And although almost fifteen centuries separated him from the death of St. Benedict, the figure of the founder of the Order remained so alive there that the young priest had the impression that he had just greeted him at that moment.
He returned to Dublin captivated by that monastic atmosphere, with the words of Abbot Placid Wolter throbbing in his conscience: “You have a much greater Benedictine vocation than your friend”.
Novitiate and a life of recollection
Following his bishop’s advice, he waited some time before making a decision. But after five years of ministry in his hometown, Fr. Marmion no longer questioned the authenticity of his call to religious life. He had decided to listen.
After obtaining the necessary licences, he arrived in Maredsous in November 1886, this time to stay. During his novitiate, he had to change customs, culture and language, which was not easy, but in the midst of these struggles he confessed: “I am convinced that I am where God wants me. I have found great peace and I feel extremely happy”.
He chose the name Columba, evoking the saintly Irish missionary of the Merovingian period, and set about practising the words of the Rule: “Listen, my son, to the precepts of the master, and incline the ear of your heart”.
He made his desired profession in 1891, after which his superiors considered sending him to Brazil. In the end, they sent him to Louvain, where the Abbey of Maredsous intended to found a new monastery.
The period from his novitiate to the end of his stay in Louvain was the centrepiece of his life of recollection. Hidden, submissive and modest, Fr. Columba became a contemplative.
He sought Christ and His Mother at every moment, realising that it is in silence that they allow themselves to be found.
More than ever, he saw holiness as a gift from God, a divine alms that no man will ever deserve.
Like a docile child, he allowed himself to be formed by the hands of his superiors, one of whom recorded: “I have never seen a more obedient religious”.
Peace and serenity were given to him as a reward for the sufferings he had heroically endured, leading him to say: “Now that I have made all the sacrifices, Our Lord has given me back, through the path of obedience, all that I had abandoned for him”.
An excellent preacher of retreats, Friar Columba was sought out by convents and communities, where his presence would not fade from memory. He was an instrument of conversions, who raised up vocations and taught through his own behaviour.
A soul adorned with the virtue of wisdom
However, he had to return to Maredsous. The same cloister that had received him as a novice at the age of 27 saw him return from Louvain at the age of 51, ready to carry out the highest mission that the Lord would assign to him.
Dom Hildebrando de Hemptinne, who had governed Maredsous for many years, had been appointed Primate of the Benedictine Confederation by the Pope and, due to his frequent stays in Rome, it became necessary to choose another abbot for the monastery.
The Chapter elected Marmion by a large majority, precisely because it found in him the profile of the authentic Benedictine. I obey and accept the will of God,” he said on the day of his election in October 1909.
As an abbot, Mgr. Columba was first and foremost a spiritual teacher who knew the ways in which souls should be led. His weekly talks to the community aroused the enthusiasm of the monks.
One of them, not content to see these marvels confined to the chapter hall, took the initiative to write them down and make them public.
This gave rise to the trilogy: Christ, Life of the Soul (1917), Christ in His Mysteries (1919), and Christ, Ideal of the Monk (1922), three works that are faithful expressions of the author’s Christocentric spirit.
Dom Marmion had to face thorny issues in the exercise of his office, and made it clear to the monks of Maredsous that the virtue of wisdom, a frequent theme of his sermons, was an ornament of his own soul.
He acted as a key man in the negotiations that brought an Anglican convent into the Church; he was asked to found an abbey in the Congo; at the Pope’s manifest wish, he sent monks to look after the Abbey of the Dormition in Jerusalem.
A corollary of his activities was the foundation of the Belgian Congregation of the Annunciation, the Order’s new jurisdiction, based in Maredsous. In this way, he showed that diplomatic, administrative and psychological qualities do not clash with a spirit of contemplation.
On the contrary, a well-led interior life leads us to resolve the temporal issues that Providence puts in our way with the greatest accuracy.
Abbot Marmion loved his spiritual children and was cherished by them. The Lord gave him a praiseworthy community in which virtues and natural gifts were translated into works of excellence and perfection.
And when the Abbey’s mild horizon was darkened by the aftermath of the First World War, the monks were able to testify to the truth of the words of the Gospel: “The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (Jn 10:11).
Expending their last energies
Although they were protected from bombardment by enemy troops, the inhabitants of Maredsous suffered almost as much as if the abbey had been destroyed.
At every moment, a tragic outcome was expected that would reduce it to dust, causing the monks no small amount of apprehension. Hunger and all kinds of privations plagued the community, which opened its doors to the wounded and homeless.
Living in the most dramatic period of his life, Abbot Columba fought to save the formation of the novices by taking them into exile. This decision caused him countless discomforts and, to add to the bitterness that grieved him, he saw his monks torn away from monastic life to serve in the army, exposed to every danger of body and spirit.
In 1918, when the war ended, he had the last five years of his life left, and he devoted them entirely to restoring discipline at Maredsous, spending his few remaining energies on this last endeavour.
On the afternoon of 30 January 1923, as a victim of a flu epidemic that was ravaging Belgium, he surrendered his soul to the Creator.
Compiled by Sandra Chisholm, with adaptations from the magazine Heralds of the Gospel n.97, January 2010. By Sr. Carmela Werner Ferreira, EP
